Lest I Become a Stranger

I spoke to my heart of the feelings I hide,
of the tears that I carry, with nowhere to hide.
I whispered, “What happens if someday, somehow,
the love in your eyes disappears from me now?”

What if one day my tears lose their worth,
and you find a new love, a new world, a new earth?
What if my name no longer lives on your lips,
and someone else holds your hands at the fingertips?

That is what frightens me—not distance, not goodbye,
not the empty roads beneath a lonely sky.
I fear that one morning, when you wake from your dreams,
you’ll forget what we were, what we meant, what it means.

I gave you the pieces I kept from the world,
my hopes and my dreams, every flag I unfurled.
I placed all my heart in the warmth of your hands,
believing that love could withstand all demands.

But you left so quietly, without turning around,
while I stayed behind where our memories were found.
I watched as your shadow disappeared down the street,
and learned how a heart can forget how to beat.

Since then, every night has remembered your name,
and every cold morning feels strangely the same.
I sit by the window and wait for the rain,
as if every raindrop might bring you again.

Sometimes when footsteps pass outside my door,
I swear for a moment you're there as before.
I rise from my silence, I look down the hall—
but there is no one there, no one at all.

Your perfume still lingers in corners of home,
a ghost of the days when I never felt alone.
And sometimes the wind moves the curtains just right,
and I almost believe you'll return in the night.

I wish I could tell you what leaving has done,
how the moon feels colder without you, my sun.
How even the stars seem to fade one by one,
as though they grew tired of waiting for dawn.

I tried to forget you. I truly have tried.
I buried your memories deep down inside.
But love is a river that refuses to die;
it finds its own way, even under the sky.

If someday your heart grows heavy with rain,
if you suddenly miss what we were once again,
remember the one who would wait through the night,
the one who loved you without asking for light.

I don't want you back if your heart has moved on.
I don't want your pity when all love is gone.
I only ask this, before you disappear:
don't turn what we had into something unclear.

And if someday my tears reach your mind,
remember the heart you once left behind.
Remember the nights when I called out your name,
and loved you in silence, though love brought me pain.

For I may forgive you, I may learn to let go,
but some kinds of love never truly say no.
They sleep in the heart like a song in the rain,
and wake without warning to whisper again.

So if someone asks me what love means to me,
I won't speak of roses, or stars, or the sea.
I'll simply say softly, with nothing to prove:

“Someone once found my heart...
and I never stopped loving them.”

And if they should ask me,
“Then why do you stay?”

I'll smile through the silence
and look far away.

Because some people leave,
but their echoes remain—
like footprints in winter,
like roses in rain.

I spoke to my heart of the feelings I hide,
of the tears that still fall though I swallow my pride.
And only one fear still remains in me:

Not that you will leave...

but that one day,
you'll look into my eyes
and no longer see me.